Seeking wisdom: a mind for God (1)

I'm just going to drop some quotes from James Emery White's good little book A Mind For God. These are all from chapter four: "The Lost Tools of Learning."

• "In our world, knowledge is on the decline, with wisdom on an even more rapid descent. What is taking its place is information, virtually unlimited amounts coupled with immediate access. The founders of Google, one of the leading Internet search engines, took their name from googol (the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros), signifying how much information they initially hoped to catalog. So one can "Google" God and come up with millions of "hits" -- but what does this deliver? How do we wade through such vast amounts of information? What is right, what is wrong, what is reputable, what is without merit? (51)
  
• "The highly lauded personalization of information protects us from exposure to anything that might challenge our thinking or make us uncomfortable. Unchecked, we begin to follow the sound of nothing more than the echo of our own voice. At the very least, knowledge becomes trivialized. So as laudable as Google's project may be, the most popular Google searches of 2005 included Janet Jackson, Xbox 360, Brad Pitt, Michael Jackson, American Idol, and Angelina Jolie. This is why education matters. (52)
  
• "And having it matter is, of course, quite Christian. The very foundation of liberal arts education can be traced back to the monastic education developed during the Middle Ages. There was sacred learning through the Bible and secular learning through the seven liberal arts of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music). The idea was that the whole of human learning could be gathered into these "arts." (53)
• "I may have read the works of Shakespeare, but to study under someone who has devoted his or her life to Shakespeare is well worth the investment and holds far more than reading alone ever could. Otherwise I may fall prey to narrow thinking, limited opinion and often shallow conclusions.
• "But there is more for the Christian. The Bible speaks clearly of the spiritual gift of teaching (Romans 12:7; 1 Cor. 12:29; Eph. 4:11). Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit because they are needed by the body of Christ. The gift of teaching implies that there are students... We must be learners, and one of the primary ways we are to learn is through teachers - this is so important the Holy Spirit actually distributes the gift of teaching for this very purpose. Failing to take advantage of this entails refusing the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. (54)
• "As Williams concludes, "attending school is not just a means of preparing for a good life. It is a good life." (55)